


Leaves and Currents

by yikesola



Series: giving the people what they want [3]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Mythical Creatures, M/M, water sprite!phil, woodland sprite!dan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-11 02:04:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18420579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yikesola/pseuds/yikesola
Summary: After the summer of endless rain, Phil wound up in new corners of the forest that other water sprites hadn’t dwelt in ages. He’d known woodland sprites before, of course. Dan was something different, or so Phil felt.An au fic about forests and wanting to help.





	Leaves and Currents

The eighth thing Phil noticed about Dan was the profound grimace of pain that crossed his face when he didn’t think that anyone could see. Phil noticed it shortly after the summer of endless rain made his home creek overflow, diverting, rerouting— he wound up in new corners of the forest that other water sprites hadn’t dwelt in ages. Mossy, shadowy glades that welcomed him and the arm of the creek he tended.

He’d known woodland sprites before, of course. Many, many of them in the eons of his youth.

But they were often bound to young saplings, susceptible to draughts of wind the way he was susceptible to the currents, with thick waxy leaves and smooth beech bark that shone pale in the moonlight. Or they were gnarled, old woodland sprites, bound to trunks with rings too many to count, roots deep in the soil and memories that stretch as wide as their branches.

Dan was something different, or so Phil felt. He was a woodland sprite bound to a young tree with an old hurt, a willow that wept with him when they were alone among the crowded forest creatures. He was warm though he smelt of wet soil. And the etches in the knotted trunk of the tree he was bound to matched the dimples on his face, while his chapped lips matched the peeling bark.

He didn’t trust Phil enough to let him see the grimace of pain at first.

Phil saw it by accident one morning, crawling from his creek and laying among the snapped reeds to smell the sunrise. Dan was a short distance away, hunched, holding his side like a mortal with a stitch while on a run.

Before this moment, Phil had noticed seven other things about Dan— the curl of his hair with gaps of sunlight that leaked through like the sunlight through leaves, the softness of his voice like a breeze, the bend of his shoulders like the bend of his willow’s branches, his lips, his hands, his crooked smile, and his skittish hesitation which contrasted so sharply from the other eager woodland sprites in the glen.

Dan saw Phil lying on the banks of his creek. He straightened his spine and painted a smile over the grimace of pain. Neither of them said a word.

Phil wanted to help him. Phil’s want to help is ingrained, and as deep as waters that go even beyond the creek he is now bound to, beyond the brook of his birth, beyond the ocean where depth is guaranteed.

He learned once before that he cannot save other sprites— a friend from forever ago, lifetimes ago… whose waters fell polluted and clogged with ashes, and who lay dying in his dried cracked creek bed, baking in the sun —but he _can_ help them. He couldn’t save his friend, but he sat by him while the wind dried his last muddy waters. And he mightn’t be able to save Dan, but maybe he could find out what put such pain on such a beautiful face, and find a way to ease it.

They slide into closeness with each other as the seasons change. Phil finds he can make Dan laugh, a laugh that rattles like rustling leaves.

He slips clumsily over the algae-coated stones in his creek, and Dan laughs while he holds out an arm to pull him back up. He sticks to a handful of names, Jeffrey and Winston and Timothy and Susan and Delilah and Janice, for the different fish and birds and squirrels and all else that comes within his view. And Dan laughs at him, fonder and fonder by the day.

Dan makes him laugh too, telling stories as dramatic as they come about the forest before Phil arrived. And he makes Phil’s heart flutter, watching Dan carefully move snails out of harm’s way or converse with the bees and the bunnies and the foxes, just to say “Hello there,” with a smile Phil would give anything to have pointed in his direction.

By autumn, under a mid-October blanket of stars, they formed a habit of talking together late into the night, about anything and everything and the world and themselves.

Phil asked him in a wave of sleepiness, all thought of whether or not the question was allowed banished by the fog of quiet comfort, why Dan sometimes looked so pained. And he thought for a moment that Dan had fallen asleep, while Phil lay on the banks of his creek among the reeds and Dan sat with his back against his tree trunk saying nothing. But Dan wasn’t asleep, Phil realised, when he looked up to see Dan’s eyes search Phil’s face intently, and though Phil didn’t know what it was he was looking for, he desperately hoped that Dan found it.

Then Dan nodded. He stood, and Phil stood with him. He pointed up into the bent branches of his willow where a bough jutted from the trunk— hidden from view and all the harder to see at night— and where a rusty axe head was buried deep in the crease, the handle long rotted away.

“It hurts?” Phil asked, knowing the answer.

“With every breath,” Dan said. “It was lodged there ages ago, and the pain has dulled to an ache, but I still feel it all the time.”

“Could I do something?”

“It would take a mortal hand to remove it,” Dan sighed.

“I know a mortal!” Phil grinned, his arms wide and his head light— he could be helpful, this was something he was good for.

“You do?”

“My brother fell in love with one. She comes back every winter when our creeks freeze over… I could have him lead her here, ask her to take the axe from you. She’d do it, I know she would! Mortals have no qualms over favours. At least, she doesn’t.”

“But you asking her would be a favour,” Dan said, his voice hesitant, his words rounded out. “Would you grudge my asking?”

“No.” Phil meant it. He felt the sureness through every drop of water in his creek. No, no he wouldn’t grudge the favour. No, he’d do this for Dan, no burden or bargaining or payment required.

Dan looked hesitant. Then he nodded, the moonlight bouncing off his curls.

“Can I…” Phil cleared his throat; it felt like asking too much. “Can I see it? The wound?”

Dan nodded again, slowly, intentionally. He pulled his woven leafy cloak aside and revealed his bare ribcage. A gash, festering despite all the years which have passed, carved between Dan’s bones. Phil knelt beside Dan and placed his slender fingers against the burning skin. He washed it, rinsed it clean with waters from his creek, and kissed the jut of Dan’s hipbone before standing.

“Does it feel any better?” Phil asked, hoping the wash had done some good.

Dan tilted his head towards his shoulder, without enough conviction to become a shrug. Then he looked at Phil as though realising something for the very first time.

When Dan bent forward to kiss him, Phil moved with him and traveled the few steps necessary until Dan’s back was pressed against the trunk of the willow tree he was bound to. The drooping branches shielded their kiss from the rest of the forest; this moment belonged to them and no one else. Not even the stars, which couldn’t see them through the dense leaves.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading— come say hi on [tumblr](http://yikesola.tumblr.com/post/184088992809/leaves-and-currents) !


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